Pat Cummins' Revamped SRH: Sunrisers Stronger But Are They Ready To End Wait For 2nd IPL Title?

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Last Updated:March 20, 2025, 07:33 IST

Sunrisers Hyderabad IPL 2025 Preview: Pat Cummins will aim to add the IPL trophy to his captaincy cabinet with a team reinforced by new signings like Mohammed Shami and Ishan Kishan.

SRH finished as the runners-up last year. (BCCI Photo)

SunRisers Hyderabad Season Preview IPL 2025: Captain Pat Cummins is a serial trophy winner. From World Test Championship to ODI World Cup, he has won them all. He came close to winning the Indian Premier League too. His Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), in IPL 2024, endured successive defeats to Kolkata Knight Riders in the first qualifier and the final to fall agonisingly short of becoming the champions.

The IPL 2025 auction was all about working on the weaknesses exposed by the champions, with the most prominent ones being a lack of batting depth and unimpressive support for Cummins in the bowling department. The arrivals of Karnataka’s underrated hard-hitter Abhinav Manohar and seasoned bowlers Mohammed Shami, Harshal Patel and Adam Zampa offer a much better balance to rectify the problems.

Wicketkeeper Ishan Kishan has effectively replaced Aiden Markram in the SRH middle order and will bring with him more IPL experience and a point to prove. Add this to their already world-beating batting core which can attack every ball from the 1st to the 120th, and you can expect SRH to not be brushed aside this year.

But will that help them take the final step? The other nine teams have done well to improve from IPL 2024, too, and the one area where SRH seems to lack is their bench strength. There aren’t enough proven performers in that squad to rotate or replace Manohar if he fails. Plus, though Zampa and Rahul Chahar are good leggies, they haven’t shaken up the league in years and Cummins can have a hard time on slower tracks.

The best way for SRH to ensure their success could be to start well and rack up consistent wins early on to avoid net run-rate quagmire at the business end. If they can do that while maintaining some momentum with streaky wins, their reinforced team should be able to put up a much more convincing title charge.

How SRH Fared In IPL 2024

It seemed like until SRH started to bat for 200-plus scores at their home, the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, no team in the league had realised how much freedom the Impact Player rule gave them. SRH were the true trend-setters in that sense and apart from KKR before those two playoffs, no team seemed to have a solution against their brutality. They finished second in the group stage with eight wins and 17 points.

Head, with his 567 runs, was their highest run-scorer and T Natarajan with 19 wickets was the top wicket-taker. Nitish Kumar Reddy won the Emerging Player of the Year award for his all-round performances for SRH.

SRH’s Strongest 12 For IPL 2025

Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins (C), Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami, Adam Zampa and Rahul Chahar

Impact player: Jaydev Unadkat/Simarjeet Singh

SRH’s Full Squad For IPL 2025

Pat Cummins (C), Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Heinrich Klassen, Nitish Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Mohammad Shami, Harshal Patel, Rahul Chahar, Adam Zampa, Atharva Taide, Abhinav Manohar, Simarjeet Singh, Zeeshan Ansari, Jaydev Unadkat, Kamindu Mendis, Aniket Verma, Eshan Malinga and Sachin Baby